The Most Powerful of Magics
by Pessimistic Dreamer
Summary: (shoujo-ai) PaineRikku. During a once-in-five-hundred-year blizzard, Paine thinks about what makes an unusual friendship work.


The Most Powerful of Magics  
  
(shoujo-ai) Paine/Rikku. During a once-in-five-hundred-year blizzard, Paine thinks about what makes an unusual friendship work.  
  
Warning: Shoujo-ai, with the standard disclaimer. Don't like. Don't read. It's that simple. Implications of sex, but nothing remotely graphic.  
  
Disclaimer: I dun' own the FFX-2, but I shelled out $50 for a copy, and that gives me right to toy with their characters for fun and not profit. Also, I'm poor. And in college. So suing would really put a damper on my future. At least wait until I'm rich, or when I'm overseas, Square.  
  
***  
  
Some things happen once in a few years, once in fifty, once in five hundred. Rare and terrifying, rare and delicious, no one ever thinks about these events until they strike, so swiftly and unexpectedly that all anyone can do is watch in amazement as they happen or try to minimize the impact they have on life. The blizzard grounding the Celsius in the northern corner of the Calm Lands and preventing anyone from leaving the airship and the usual attractions from running was one of those events. From the first moment the sphere waves poured in from all over Spira, I knew this wasn't an ordinary snowstorm. Even Besaid, tropical paradise, had snow forecasted. In a time when only Gagazet and Macalania ever had heavy snow fall, a Spira-wide blizzard was a true freak occurrence.  
  
Things that rarely occur tend to occur together. When a blizzard comes, when no winter-gray light shines through the wall of whirling snow, when the power goes out in a reliable ship for no reason, other, more miraculous things happen. While the others go down to the engine room to diagnose what's wrong, two friends get to talking about life and love, about secrets that few people ever realize they have. And things move further than they ever expect them to.  
  
Rikku loves Yuna, always has, always will. Even now that the High Summoner lives in Besaid with her blitzball player Shuyin look-alike, and Rikku has all but given up, the Al Bhed girl still loves Yuna with the fiercest determination. A sweet young woman, whose bare shoulders my arms are wrapped around right now, carries a burden of unrequited, and as some of the Yevon bigots might have said, forbidden, love. Friendly embraces must kill her on the inside, the clueless acknowledgments to Rikku's confessions of love bring her hidden pain. She clings to Yuna, and to a dream that can never come true, but that can never be renounced.  
  
She snuggles closer, burying her face in the crook of my neck and I kiss the top of her forehead as I draw the blankets up around us. From the outside, I doubt that anyone could see anything of us but a flash of gold and silver hair.  
  
I doubt I love her, not as anything more than a friend, and in the rare events, a person to lie next to, not eternal love. Neither of us need that, and I could never imagine living with her for more than a few years. Little annoying habits, you know. She throws her dirty clothes everywhere, has a tendency to bump into everything as she navigates the cabin late at night. Her radio plays the same Luca-pop songs over again with little variation. Living with her would be a nightmare, even though we've been doing so for two years.  
  
She doesn't love me either, even if she says it in the afterglow. Yuna is perfection, Gippal second, me a distant but available third. A good friend, and a good playmate, someone she cares about, not an eternal love. She can't live with me either. I'm too morose, too sarcastic. Rumor has it that I snore. I leave the door to the deck open.  
  
We might not love each other, but certainly we need each other. I need someone bright; she needs someone calm. I need someone to look after, and Rikku needs someone who understands. And I certainly understand what it means to love someone without noticing. How many people have I had crushes on, who only saw me as a friend? I've given up on love, content with a few interludes.  
  
Rikku appears to have fallen asleep, her body heavy and relaxed in my arms, but when I disengage from her to return to my own bed she reaches out for me.  
  
"Stay with me..." she whines as a pocket of cold air takes my place beside her. I, too, make a hasty retreat back to the bed when the first blasts of cold air touched my skin. The heating system on the ship tries valiantly to warm us but the power of the storm and record low temperatures proves too much. The noble blanket, and old fashioned body heat serves as infinitely better insulation against the chill winds battering against the thin metal shell of the airship.  
  
My arms take their place around her shoulders again, and she curls up closer to me. Her breath is heavy and content against my skin. The sigh is beautiful, relaxed and fulfilled. It might not be eternal love, but it's a love for now. I don't actually say the words as much as I murmur them against her mane of blond hair, now loose and thick and piling over my hands.  
  
We lie there in silence for a while, with Rikku pleading whenever my hands threaten to leave their perch.   
  
"Does the snow scare you?" I ask finally after the fiftieth time of hearing her whine as I shifted my position. Crushed nerve endings listen to no needy Gullwing. "I thought lightning and water were opposed."  
  
"No!" She protests, batting at me playfully. "You! I'm not scared of the snow!" She waves an indignant hand at the thick white flakes pleading entrance at the window "I just don't like the cold."  
  
"Of course you don't. You know, if only you'd wear some actual clothes, you might not shiver every time the temperature drops below sixty."  
  
Rikku pulls back from me and grins. "Well you know... if you got it, flaunt it. And just a while ago you weren't complaining."  
  
"Just a while ago, you weren't complaining about the cold." I retort, allowing the words to shower us both with memories of what had happened. A mistaken kiss between the two of us that somehow managed to ignite into something more. Fun, yes, I tell myself, but powerful as well. It was magical almost, the way that her desperation faded for a time and the way my loneliness melted into oneness.  
  
A light touch of the tickling type on the side distracts me from my thoughts. "You..." I counterattack, going straight for the lower back, and eliciting a satisfying squeal that signals a degeneration into a full out tickle war. She laughs hysterically as the covers fly everywhere and tangle between us. I too would laugh, if I were one for laughter. As it is, I smirk and genuinely enjoy myself.  
  
When we part, there are tears in her eyes, although they're happy at least. Our tussle warms us up a bit, but the air outside of our safe haven is still cold. We burrow back into the covers, stealing body heat from each other. If day has turned to night, this is the time when Rikku's eyelids droop, and waiting for the snow to stop becomes a passive activity.  
  
"You'll stay with me right?" Rikku asks, almost trailing off at the end. She forces my hands to wrap around her back again and wraps her own around my waist, as if I were her gigantic teddy bear.  
  
Hopefully the Celsius will take our side tonight and keep Buddy and Brother out of the cabin until Rikku wakes up. Every time I intend to leave when the falls asleep, she manages to protest. So I must hold her while she sleeps, and only extricate myself when she has awaken.  
  
Her breathing is regular and already she's asleep. Barkeep needs to slip something into her drink to regulate her activity levels. From hyper to dead in 2.3 seconds, and from dead to hyper in 1.3 seconds, and never spending enough time in either state to let the calmer among us to get used to her.  
  
I'll take her anyway, when she's here in my arms, snuggling up to me like a pet. It only happens rarely. But when it does happen, it certainly is enough to make me content. And if she'll stay in my arms, then I'll warm her shoulders. That is the magic of rare events, and that makes it the most powerful magic of them all.  
  
***  
  
A/N: First, this is not my first fanfic. You want to tear it apart and brutalize it, you are certainly free to do so. This is however my first Yuri/Shoujo-ai type fic. Just to let you all know.  
  
Second, I seriously need a beta reader for any future slash fics that I do. I have one for my het fics written under a different penname, but none for the slash fics. And as I've discovered, good writing is not accomplished alone.  
  
Third, the bulk of this story was inspired by "King of Solitude" by Onitsuka Chihiro. This chorus was not translated by me, but expresses the tone of the story appropriately:  
  
"Closer to you  
With the most powerful magic  
I'll change even the piling up snow into wings  
And I'll warm your shoulders  
Until you sleep" 


End file.
